While the city has been experiencing a softening of visitor arrivals and occupancy rate, Jill Goh, the new General Manager of Mandarin Oriental Macau, told us how the non-gaming hotel is facing the challenge with its digital marketing strategies and development of the MICE business. The hotel is also unfazed by rising competition from waves of newly opening hotels and resorts
The citys hotel occupancy rate and visitor arrivals have been dropping this year, in contrast to the growth of previous years. Has Mandarin Oriental Macau also felt this downtrend in terms of occupancy rate?
Id be lying if I said no. Of course, were part of the gaming city. And yes, we do feel the effect of it. However, being a Mandarin Oriental Hotel in the city and being a unique non-gaming hotel, you know our focus is always to bring non-gaming guests into the hotel. So, with the groups reputation and worldwide marketing strategies we hope to ride out this storm in a less turbulent way.
How?
Well, I think we focus a lot on capturing the non-gaming business from Asia Pacific, predominantly from China our main market feeder is from China. So, the team is very actively looking at digital marketing and so on; looking at dynamic offerings for the MICE market to come in and have small and medium-sized meetings in the hotel; plus, offering a lot of attractive and exciting packages to invite families to come over for vacation from Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong. These are also our important market segmentation people who look for a true 5-star luxury experience. Thats what were famous for.
Weve seen some casino-resorts offer promotional packages reducing room rates. Does that strategy affect Mandarin Orientals design of accommodation packages?
Were definitely mindful of making sure that our offer is great value for money but we dont believe reducing the price is the right strategy for us to bring in guests for higher occupancy. Because were looking at a niche market. Staying with us is the total experience of a luxury hotel. Indeed, there are a lot of great promotions in Cotai, and I think thats for various reasons. For example, Studio City is opening and they need to create awareness, to bring in people to see what they have. And theyve come up with very creative packages.
Weve recently launched a very creative digital marketing [campaign] to [showcase] the rich cultural part of Macau to remind people what this city was, and what were the old values. For example, for the recent [international] fireworks [contest] in the month of September we [highlighted] the firecrackers part of Macau city. Its a digital marketing [campaign] called Hidden Faces [conducted via WeChat messager]. So it sort of reminds people that theres more to see in Macau than gaming.
WeChat is a big plaform for the Chinese, especially the current generation. The way that they get to know the world. The way that they conduct themselves and look for places to go is to information on the Internet and WeChat. Friends recommending to friends; so that they read these, and then share these. Its very powerful. And we recognise the fact that it is the future of our guests. And we want to make sure that they get to know us more but not in a hard-sell way. We want to tell them: Look, come and visit Macau; there are many hidden sides here that people may have forgotten.
Depending upon the time of year, the first Hidden Faces [vignette] was about the culture of firecrackers. And subsequently we talked about musicians, which is also another part of Macau culture. Moving forward, we always pick the topical issue for that period. So well soon be talking about the Grand Prix [in November]. We want to do our part to promote Macau plus ourselves as a unique destination.
Thats the key thing; the emotional engagement that people actually read the story behind. And that has a link to where they feel comfortable staying and when they come to visit Macau. The reception for Hidden Faces has been good since Summer. It takes time to register in peoples minds. We will continue to tell stories, and find more unique, forgotten sides of Macau.
You mentioned that Mainland China is an important source of hotel guests. But weve seen the trend that theyre increasingly attracted to Japan and South Korea and other short-haul destinations. Correspondingly, we see visitor arrivals to Hong Kong and Macau falling. Whats the strategy to appeal to these Chinese visitors?
I think we will continue to pride ourselves on being a non-gaming hotel in Macau, and matching the needs of the niche market coming out of China. So, they will still want to come to Macau, to come to see this city and stay in a comfortable and intimate hotel like ours.
What about the MICE business? How has Mandarin Oriental Macau approached this segment?
Our facilities are perfect for small and medium-sized meetings. So, we have a very good offering of food and beverage, and our size of meeting room is good for catering to about 200 visitors. So, not the large convention [halls] of The Venetian or Sheraton. We focus on some companies who want to conduct a couple of days of off-site meetings with top executives; so we provide comprehensive services from the state-of-the-art technology to personalised service and personalised food and beverage offerings.
We have definitely restructured our sales and marketing human resources to really target Southeast Asia, especially Hong Kong and the southern part of China to encourage a lot of these medium-sized to small-sized group meetings to be conducted here in the hotel.
However, with the dynamic business planning in the world nowadays, everything is so short in [terms of] lead time. Nobody actually plans for a meeting months ahead. So, a lot of short lead [times] and depending upon the season, like for November, we do see a pretty healthy base on our books. We do have that. But the effort now is to continue to sell it and make our meeting packages very dynamic to meet the needs of these companies. For example, I think previously the city may have been a bit too expensive for some companies to come over. Now, it has become reasonable and affordable for them to come. And for some companies that used to travel further away for a company event, now this city has become very much part of their choices. So we are betting a lot on this segment of the business continuing to keep us busy.
In this meeting business segment Hong Kong poses competition with very good transportation and logistics links . . .
Hong Kongs hotels are also very actively seeking this segmentation of the business to keep occupancy healthy. But Im sure people who would consider coming to Macau would appreciate that this is a different environment. Hong Kong is very efficient and also very busy. This [Macau] is a different mood altogether. When you come to this part of the world, even though its just an hour away, your mood and offering here is different. You can then serve the business part, and also you can keep cool within a small island, and then have a lot of intimate dinners with close proximity from one point to another.
A lot more hotels are nearing completion, notably in Cotai. And for non-gaming hotels, we see Ascott operating here, with Crowne Plaza Macau opening in the fourth quarter. How does Mandarin Oriental Macau see this competition; whats the strategy to attract guests?
Its definitely competition that we cannot ignore. However, we always believe that every hotel has its own niche to work on and to capture. All this is healthy competition, in my opinion. They make this city even more interesting, with more reason for people to come. They may stay with us and dine at Wynn Palace, or have a ride on the Golden Reel in Studio City. So, this is for the prosperity of the city and we are mindful of the new supply coming to town and have prepared ourselves to continue to maintain our attractiveness. The Mandarin Oriental Hotel in the city has actually been established since 1984. So the reputation and name of Mandarin Oriental is quite a legacy in the city; people have a special attachment and loyalty to us. We continue to work on our strengths and the group of friends we have established in the city, and worldwide.
Is China where Mandarin Oriental now has the quickest pace of expansion?
Were in Asia definitely for the next couple of years. The newer hotels in that direction, Greater China. The most recent one we opened in Asia is in Taipei its a beautiful, beautiful hotel. And prior to that, we have two properties in China that opened within a short span of time: Mandarin Oriental Guangzhou in January 2013 and Mandarin Oriental Pudong in April 2013.
Currently, we have three hotels in China in operation; one of them is in Sanya and opened in 2009 a very exquisite resort in China, as well.
So, in the next couple of years, we have two hotels [opening] in Beijing. Mandarin Oriental, Beijing is scheduled for a 2017 opening. The property is owned by CCTV.
At the same time, this year we also signed a new management contract with Wangfujing, which is a small boutique hotel of 74 rooms opposite the Forbidden City. It will also open in 2017.
We also have one in Chongqing, one in Chengdu, and one in Shenzhen. They are opening in the next two to five years.
How have the Mandarin Oriental hotels in China been doing?
They have been going from strength to strength. And we have, I must say, as a company, very quickly established ourselves in the marketplace, especially the two in cities like Shanghai and Guangzhou. These hotels have done very, very well in establishing themselves reputation-wise in the marketplace as far as the service standard of the hotels within a very short time. Both hotels are now placed number one in TripAdvisor in the city, which is a remarkable achievement for a new hotel.
